Chapter 118
After the first round of King's Road competition ended.
Information about the King's Road participants was slowly leaking out through people who had attended the broadcast.
Especially, spoilers about the competition that everyone was curious about were secretly spreading through anonymous sites.
[King's Road 1st Round Attendance Review
I'll skip the lineup since it seems like everyone who knows already knows.
1st Round Representative Song Competition.
Weus - Honestly for the 1st round, I only remember these guys and the last stage. At first, I didn't expect much since they were an idol group I didn't know, but they devoured the stage with their performance and skills. Personally, a strong candidate for 1st place.
Neon - They're unique which is nice, but it seems like it'll be very hit or miss. I had some expectations since they're the only band participant, but it fell short of expectations.
Lil - As everyone knows, Lil X does a lot of crazy stuff on stage, but this time it was a bit boring. Hope they show their proper crazy side in the next round.
Anna - The only female participant. Country genre doesn't seem to suit the competition that well, but the vocals themselves were solid so it was good to listen to.
Eric - The guy who won American Idol and crushed the Billboard charts, then disappeared overnight and didn't show his face for 2 years, and now what? Suddenly joining a competition? Anyway, I thought he'd obviously be 1st... Well, the stage wasn't bad. It just wasn't a stage that lived up to Eric Foster's name value.
Joshua - Wow... Even thinking about it now, I can only marvel. Where on earth did this kid pop up from? The moment I heard his voice, I thought he's a genius. Well, even if I make a fuss here, you won't believe it anyway, so just check it out when it broadcasts.]
Comments running fast as soon as the post went up.
Among them, the majority were reactions of disbelief.
-So who do you think got 1st in the 1st round?
└Joshua or Weus.
└What? Not Eric Foster?
└You'll know when you watch the broadcast.
-Weus is better than Eric Foster? You want me to believe this?
-Looking at it now, isn't this person a Weus fan? Seeing them hype up Weus and put down Eric Foster, it seems right.
-Personally, the winner will be one of Eric Foster, Lil X, or Ashley. Neon Punch is okay too, but those three have shown more.
-So who are Weus and Joshua???
-I want to watch the broadcast, not reviews! When on earth is the broadcast airing.
Thanks to the comment sections that turned into battlefields every time, posts about King's Road made it to the popular posts whenever they went up.
And as the first broadcast day approached, interest in King's Road only continued to grow.
And.
[Hmm.]
The glow of a monitor visible in a dark room.
In a quiet space where only the clicking sound of a mouse could be heard, a man could be seen staring intently at something.
[Weus... Weus, huh.]
The man, who had been looking through posts about King's Road for a while, smiled.
[An idol group... To think they'd find that kind of method.]
Muttering incomprehensible words while continuing to watch the monitor screen, the man, no, Eric Foster stretched both arms above his head and closed his eyes.
[A lot of unexpected things are popping up. That kid too.]
And when Eric Foster opened his eyes again, they sparkled as if gleaming with light.
Then he spoke as if someone was in front of him.
[I'm going to take 1st place anyway.]
Smirking at an invisible someone, Eric Foster played the video he had paused on the monitor.
In the video, Eric Foster's appearance receiving the cheers of fans on stage was playing endlessly.
***
Weus's practice room.
The members could be seen gathered to prepare for the 2nd round of the competition.
Normally, this would be the time they should be sweating through choreography practice, but the atmosphere in the practice room was quiet since they hadn't even decided on their competition song yet.
"Haa..."
"What should we do?"
"Hmm."
Only occasional sighs quietly echoed through the practice room around that time.
Woo Jung-woo's voice muttering to himself could be heard.
"I wonder what kind of stage Joshua will show this time..."
At the mention of Joshua's name, the members who had been lost in their own thoughts started speaking up one by one.
"Hmm, Joshua will do well this time too, right?"
"Of course. He's a genius."
"More than that, when it airs on broadcast, isn't it going to be a huge deal?"
"It would be weirder if it wasn't..."
"That's true."
Everyone spoke with dazed expressions as if recalling Joshua's 1st round stage.
That much impact Joshua's stage had on us too.
Moreover, he took 1st place from us by a narrow margin.
"In the 2nd round, we definitely have to..."
When Baek Si-hyun was cautiously making that determination, Woo Jung-woo's voice was heard again.
"Hmm... But isn't that kid a bit strange? I should say he seems kind of dazed."
"Was he?"
"And asking back if he did well on stage is also a bit weird."
Certainly, Joshua seen up close didn't look like an ordinary kid.
The expression that made it hard to know what he was thinking too.
"Isn't it just because he's a genius?"
"Well, geniuses are hard to understand."
"That's true."
When the word genius came up, the other members all nodded.
Other than that reason, it was hard to explain Joshua.
"I'm more concerned about Eric Foster than Joshua."
"Why?"
"He seems to be at ease by himself."
When Park Han-hwi said that, Woo Jung-woo also continued speaking as if agreeing.
"He definitely looked like that. Not just on the set but also on stage, he looked relaxed."
Like Woo Jung-woo said, Eric Foster's appearance in the 1st round didn't look like someone who came out as a participant in the competition.
Even though everyone was keeping him in check, he didn't seem to care.
"What do you think?"
At that moment, Park Han-hwi spoke to Eugene Kim.
"About Eric Foster."
At Park Han-hwi's words, Eugene Kim started moving his lips, exuding an aura that said he didn't want to answer.
'It's too obvious that he dislikes him...'
When I was looking at Eugene Kim with worry.
Eugene Kim, after pondering for a moment with a frown, eventually opened his mouth at Park Han-hwi's innocent gaze.
"He's an obnoxious guy."
Everyone made surprised expressions at Eugene Kim's words, which were different from usual. Then, with a sullen face, Eugene Kim continued.
"He's probably thinking right now that a stage to shine on has finally come back for him. That's why I didn't want to meet him..."
"A stage to shine on?"
"And by now, he's probably worrying about what kind of stage he should do to take 1st place more stylishly, since he's going to be 1st anyway."
"How can he be so sure he'll be 1st?"
"Well... that guy is a genius, too."
"..."
With those final words, Eugene Kim closed his mouth.
"Hehe... There are geniuses everywhere. How is a normal person supposed to live, feeling so unfair... Right, Lin hyung?"
"Shut up."
"Ahahaha! Come to think of it, Lin hyung is also a creature belonging to the genius category. So naturally, you can't understand the feelings of people like us!"
Maybe because of the dampened atmosphere including Eugene Kim, Woo Jung-woo spoke more exaggeratedly.
No... but why does he actually look like he feels unfair?
"It's unfair! I said it's unfair!"
Watching Woo Jung-woo whining, something suddenly came to mind.
When Woo Jung-woo is like that, there should be a member playing along next to him.
"Come to think of it, Sung-ha and Ah-jin said they were going to buy drinks, but it seems like they're taking too long."
Park Han-hwi spoke with concern, as if having the same thought as me.
At that moment.
"Hyungs! Hyungs! Did you see the video that went up today?"
"It's crazy, crazy!"
Kang Ah-jin and Shim Sung-ha burst through the door and hurried into the practice room.
'Did they come running the moment I mentioned them...?'
"Video?"
"The introduction video we filmed last time!"
"Ah, right. We filmed a video to put out as a teaser last time."
It seemed the teaser and introduction video for King's Road that was filmed a while ago had finally been released.
"But what's so crazy about it?"
"Look at this view count! The video just went up and it's already exceeded 1 million views!"
"And the speed of comments coming in is amazing! Every time I refresh, the comments just keeeeep increasing!"
As Kang Ah-jin and Shim Sung-ha spoke with such fervor, the other members also started checking reactions on their phones.
"The response is really amazing even though it's just a preview."
"There are a lot of our names in the comments!"
"I didn't know we had this many overseas fans. Japanese, Chinese, Arabic... what language is that?"
"Probably Russian?"
Just as the members said, as soon as the video went up, various reactions in languages from all over the world were pouring in.
There were also many comments supporting other singers, but still, the most comments were about Weus.
After looking through the incoming comments for a while, the members eventually spoke with serious expressions.
"We... need to work even harder."
"I didn't know so many people were expecting this much from us."
"There are even countries I've never been to... how did they come to know and like us."
"We'll be able to do a world tour after King's Road ends, right?"
"Of course. We'll get 1st on Billboard and do a world tour. We have to do everything."
Watching the members' fighting spirit burning, I quietly observed their appearances.
'What will we look like after King's Road ends.'
I tried to picture everyone smiling.
But for some reason, it wasn't easy to imagine what expression I would be making.
***
Time passed and it was the day of the 2nd round competition.
The competition began in an even more tense atmosphere than the 1st round.
Performing in the designated order, Joshua, who took the stage first this time, was still magnificent.
Waaaaaaaaaah-
The cheers that burst out after Joshua's stage ended resounded powerfully as if announcing the start of the 2nd round.
'The level of the stages has gone up significantly compared to the 1st round.'
Even the participants who ranked low in the 1st round seemed to have grit their teeth, proving they weren't here for nothing with a determination to burn everything.
In that heated atmosphere, the remaining order was just two stages - Weus and Eric Foster.
The first to take the stage was Weus.
Michael Jackson's hit song "Black or White" was performed on stage through an idol group from the East.
Unlike the 1st round, the stage focused more on communicating with the audience rather than performance.
Eventually, the stage ended.
Waaaaaaaaaah-
Weus, having finished a satisfactory stage, went down below the stage listening to the audience's cheers.
Then.
[Looks like you held back more than the 1st round. Still, I liked it.]
Eric Foster, who had been waiting below the stage, tapped Eugene Kim's shoulder and spoke, then went up onto the stage with a relaxed face.
Eric Foster's song choice was Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You."
When the song flowed out and Eric Foster's voice could be heard, we stared at Eric Foster's back from behind the stage as if possessed by something.
And after all stages ended.
Conan's voice resonated through the set.
[I will announce the 1st place of the King's Road 2nd round. The 1st place is...]